April 30, 2024

The Courts

Daily Caller: Judge Fines Trump For Violating Gag Order, Warns Of Future Jail Time

By Katelynn Richardson

.....Judge Juan Merchan fined former President Donald Trump $9,000 Tuesday and held him in contempt for violating his gag order, warning he may impose jail time for future violations.

Merchan ordered Trump to remove the offending posts by 2:15 pm Tuesday and to pay the fine by May 3. He rejected Trump’s defense that he was simply engaging in political speech by responding to attacks by witnesses like Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, writing that the Court is “keenly aware of, and protective of, Defendant’s First Amendment rights, particularly given his candidacy for the office of President of the United States.”

“It is critically important that Defendant’s legitimate free speech rights not be curtailed, that he be able to fully campaign for the office which he seeks and that he be able to respond and defend himself against political attacks,” Merchan wrote. “For that reason, this Court exercised discretion when it crafted the Expanded Order and delayed issuing it until the eve of trial.”

Courthouse News: Ballot initiative titles are government speech, Tenth Circuit rules, spiking First Amendment claims

By Joe Duhownik

.....The Tenth Circuit affirmed a Colorado trial court ruling Friday, rejecting a claim from a conservative nonprofit that a law governing ballot measure titles violates the First Amendment.

Advance Colorado, the sponsor of two tax reduction initiatives on Colorado’s ballot this November, claims that altering the title of an initiative interferes with and compels private speech by forcing the government’s opinion into the heading.

One month after hearing arguments, a three-judge panel disagreed. 

“The Colorado initiative titling system squarely qualifies as government speech, and Advance Colorado has not otherwise shown its own speech was improperly compelled by the government speech,” U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Murphy wrote on behalf of the Tenth Circuit panel. 

Texas Tribune: Appeals court considers whether West Texas A&M drag show was unconstitutionally banned

By William Melhado

.....A federal appeals court considering whether West Texas A&M University’s president violated the First Amendment when he canceled a campus drag show last year focused many of their questions Monday on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld campus non-discrimination policies.

But the panel of three judges used that 2010 case — which said universities can require groups to admit LGBTQ+ students — to suggest that school officials could also ban drag shows because some people find the performances offensive to women.

A lawyer representing a group of West Texas A&M students who’ve twice attempted to host a drag show on campus argued before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday that President Walter Wendler discriminated based on viewpoint and censored speech when canceling the performances.

In March 2023, Wendler banned drag shows in response to a student fundraiser that featured drag performers. The president argued the performances “denigrate and demean women,” and shouldn’t be allowed on the public university’s campus.

Reason: Backpage: A Blueprint for Squelching Speech

By Elizabeth Nolan Brown

.....U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa acquitted three former Backpage executives of myriad counts against them last week—more evidence of how empty so much of the federal case against them is. Humetewa ruled that there was insufficient evidence to uphold 50 of the counts* against journalist and Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey, 10 of the counts against former Executive Vice President Scott Spear, and 18 of the counts against former Chief Financial Officer Jed Brunst.

From the beginning, this prosecution has been premised on a bogus rationale (authorities yammer on about sex trafficking though none of the defendants are charged with sex trafficking), overreaching in its scope (attempting to hold a web platform accountable for user-generated speech, in contradiction to Section 230), offensive to the First Amendment, and relentless in its attempts to handicap the defense. So it's a treat to see a judge slap prosecutors down a notch, even if it comes very late in the game (after two trials and after one defendant taking his own life) and even though it may not make much of a practical difference for Lacey, Brunst, and Spear (who face imprisonment for the rest of their lives even with the acquittals).

But to read Humetewa's recent order is to get infuriated about the underlying case all over again. Presenting the evidence in the light most favorable to the government's position, Humetewa manages (inadvertently?) to highlight how insane and unfair this position is.

DFI: The Defense of Freedom Institute and the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho First to File Lawsuit Against Biden Administration Over New Title IX Rules

.....Today, the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) and the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho filed the first in the nation lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s final Title IX regulations…

The regulations will also lead to violations of religious liberty, due process, and free speech rights that will damage students, teachers, and schools.

Congress

Just the News: Rep. Tenney: Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations will create First Amendment problems

.....Representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) says the Biden administration’s trans-inclusive changes to Title IX test our First Amendment rights. “Forcing people to use pronouns, in my view of the First Amendment, is what’s called compelled speech and the freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what to say,” she says. “It’s like they can’t tell you you have to say the Pledge of Allegiance or stand for the flag. And so forcing someone to actually use pronouns that they don’t choose to use and then holding your employer liable to me is going to have First Amendment problems.”

Free Expression

The Atlantic: A Prominent Free-Speech Group Is Fighting for Its Life

By Gal Beckerman

.....This afternoon, PEN America announced that it is canceling its World Voices festival—this year was to be the 20th anniversary of the annual international gathering of writers that Rushdie conceived as a way to encourage cross-cultural conversation and champion embattled artists. A cascade of authors, either out of conviction or under pressure, felt they couldn’t take part. PEN America had already decided last week to cancel its literary awards for the year after nearly half of the nominees withdrew their names from consideration. And its annual gala, a black-tie fundraiser scheduled for the middle of May, also seems hard to imagine right now. The language of the protest, too, has reached new extremes, with the most recent salvo demanding the resignation of PEN America’s CEO, Suzanne Nossel; its president, Jennifer Finney Boylan; and its entire board. Everyone I’ve spoken with there is in a state of high panic and deep sadness.

Archive.today link

City Journal: What to Do When You’re Canceled

By Ilya Shapiro

.....It can happen to anyone. A bad tweet, viral video, or something you say (or text, post, e-mail, or Slack) gets blown out of proportion. Then comes a public pile-on or an official investigation, followed by punishment or ostracism. Cancel culture—the mob-like desire to punish politically incorrect speech—has made modern life into a minefield.

Those who deny the existence of cancel culture argue that the term is a smoke screen to excuse bad behavior from people who don’t want to accept the consequences of their actions. But the mere articulation of an unpopular opinion or uncomfortable truth shouldn’t make it impossible for ordinary people to live their lives. As the writer Jonathan Rauch has observed, criticism, or “expressing an argument or opinion with the idea of rationally influencing public opinion through public persuasion,” can be distinguished from canceling, which is “organizing or manipulating a social environment or a media environment with a goal or predictable effect of isolating, deplatforming, or intimidating an ideological opponent.”

If you find yourself the target of a cancellation campaign, as I did two years ago (about which more anon), you’ll understand the difference. What follows is a guide for what to do if it happens to you.

The Atlantic: Columbia University’s Impossible Position

By Conor Friedersdorf

.....In fact, it may be the case that Columbia is both failing to provide its Jewish students with equal access to its educational experience and (as the Knight First Amendment Institute has argued) engaging in viewpoint discrimination against Palestine-aligned students.

Those who believe Columbia is overpolicing the Israel-Hamas protests should rationally desire reforms to Title VI, so that more campus speech is deemed acceptable. In reality, most social-justice-oriented faculty and students are either highly selective about whose controversial viewpoints they want protected or loath to recognize the long-standing conflict between tolerance for free speech and antidiscrimination law. Vilifying Shafik without acknowledging the regulatory environment she confronts is much easier.

On the ideological right, meanwhile, is sudden zeal for draconian Department of Education enforcement of antidiscrimination law. “This is what’s known as a Title VI violation,” Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute posted Monday on social media. “Send in the National Guard and otherwise put Columbia and its morally bankrupt leadership into federal receivership.”

Archive.today link

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers

By Naomi Nix

.....Meta’s Oversight Board, an independent collection of academics, experts and lawyers who oversee the social media giant’s thorny content decisions, told some employees last week that their jobs were at risk of being cut, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The job eliminations probably will add to challenges facing the Oversight Board at a time when it has faced criticism for moving too slowly and cautiously to issue decisions and opinions that significantly shape how Meta handles contentious free speech debates. The cuts also could affect the Oversight Board’s longtime quest to be considered a viable model of governance for the social media industry in the eyes of regulators, civil society groups and the general public.

The States

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Journalist Has No First Amendment Right to Publish Police Chief's Home Address

By Eugene Volokh

.....From Kratovil v. City of New Brunswick, decided Friday by the N.J. intermediate appellate court (Judges Gilson, DeAlmeida, and Bishop-Thompson):